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A drone attack on a U.S. military
outpost in Jordan killed
three U.S. troops (Reuters) and wounded
at least thirty-four, U.S. President Joe Biden said yesterday. He said
that Iran-backed militant groups carried out the attack in northeast
Jordan near the Syrian border.…CFR expert Steven A. Cook writes for the
Wall Street Journal. “No one is going to lend a hand to the U.S. unless
Washington takes decisive action to reform the [Palestinian
Authority], confront Iran’s ‘axis of resistance’ and isolate the region’s
arsonists, notably Qatar and Turkey.”)
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Subsequent
to the ignoble history of U.S. support for the Shah of Iran’s
dictatorship starting at the end of World War II, the U.S.
militarization of the country , the overthrow of the progressive Prime
Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in
1953, the embarrassment of the hostage taking in 1979, funding Iraq in
the brutal Gulf war of the 1980s, the United States has maintained
hostility to Iran despite occasional signals from the latter of a
desire to establish better relations. During the Obama administration
in 2015 a nuclear treaty was negotiated between Iran, the US, and other
countries, but it was abrogated by President Trump. U.S./Iranian
hostilities have increased ever since, particularly since October 7,
2023.
U.S. policy has included an economic embargo, efforts to create
region-wide opposition to the regime, expressions of support for a
large (and justifiable) internal movement for democracy and
secularization in the country, and encouragement, more or less, for
growing Israeli threats against Iran.
Given this troubled history of U.S./Iranian relations spanning at least
60 years, the current threats of war expressed by both Israel and the
United States are not surprising.
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And
now, (April, 2024) the threat of escalating war in the region, the Middle
East and the Persian Gulf, has increased dramatically.
As
Dr. King said about earlier war-making: “This madness must cease.”
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